It might be kind of neat to have barbarian-only skills. Everyone knows that barbarians are reviled. But there could be a couple interesting advantages for kingdoms that decide to break the other way and become a political pariah by accepting them.

Animal husbandry: The barbarian is experienced at interacting with animals, including those trained for war. Opens up the capability to lead elephant units, and lets the character choose from a small list of animals (with stats) to have as an NPC companion for RP events. (e) bonus to damage while leading elephant units, and may have a second animal companion.

Exotic: The barbarian fights in an exotic matter. Anyone lacking the exotic skill automatically gets -5 attack and -5 defense against units led by barbarians. However, this effect is reciprocal: the barbarian also gets the penalty against non-exotics. There is no effect when two Exotics fight each other. A character with Exotic and Valor has a chance of surviving killing blows with 1 hp during duels, but only once per duel.(e) The barbarian has become accustomed to non-exotics. His/her penalties go away.

Note: anyone who acquires these skills will automatically be classified as a barbarian.

My first impulse was to say that barbarian characters are the bane of the sim. This whole idea gave me flashbacks to the legions of Nanman and Miao, rampaging vikings, werewolves, professional wizards, and others that probably would have made me despair over v5 if I hadn't been busy doing KTs most of the time.

But I decided to ponder about it for a bit. I think the idea of implementing actual game mechanics for playing barbarian characters could have merit, but it would require at least a little bit of balancing. Building off Memento's suggestion, it might work something like this: Only a barbarian can breed war elephants and lead them in battle. Barbarians can learn a skill / use a tactic that grants superior battle stats when leading cavalry against infantry. Barbarians cannot learn Articulate, Networking, Civil/Military Engineer, Siegecraft, Logistics, Scribe, or Innocuous. Barbarians get much better consideration than Han Chinese when dealing with their fellow tribesmen. Barbarians might get the chance to hire mercenaries (see above). Rulers don't lose as much PR for executing a barbarian.

The idea is to make playing a barbarian more interesting for those who already wanted to do so anyway, without drawing in all the casual players (or munchkins) who want to gain more bonuses for their character and don't care about RP implications for their kingdom ruler.To drive away the munchkins, you'd want something that is generally worse than a vanilla character. To encourage rulers to actually seek out such characters, you make them very good in certain situations (in this example, an open field battle with horses or elephants involved).

They could always put these sorts of things in, for ONLY NPC's. After all, they'll know who are 'barbarian' NPC's, and it's not like Lu Bu has to be the only person with unique skills. (I do realize he's probably not the only one, but NPC barbarians could have unique stuff to bring, thus making them their own bag of goodies for people. Not say 'DO THIs', just saying, a way this 'Could' be done.)

Personally, I would like to see more unique skills for NPCs a la Lu Bu's, but I'm also aware that many players are offended by the idea that there's a skill or ability out there that might be out of their reach. Lu Bu is a special case, someone who is set apart from every other duelist. For the non-duelist characters who are also set apart from their peers, we can usually accomplish that simply with high stats (see: Cao Cao/Zhuge Liang), but something special needs to be done to allow a Lu Bu to go three on one against Oath Brothers.

But giving other NPCs extra skills is something we always have the ability to do if we feel it's needed. An expansion on the occasional 'unseizable item' bonus that we've seen in the past, like Zhang Fei's whiskers last game or Mi Heng's tongue before that.

I don't mind Lu Bu being better than every other duelist (PCs included), but if that's the case I'd like there to be more transparency with his special skill. From what I can tell it essentially makes him unbeatable. Players are conditioned to believe that they have a chance of winning things, so when you introduce NPCs they can't defeat, it throws them for a loop.

I'd be really irritated if I had a 110* War Duelist(e), Weaponmaster(e) character get completely curbstomped by Lu Bu. But at least by showcasing what he's capable of in the pregame, I know not to bother trying at all.

On one hand, it would be really cool to breathe some more flavor into NPCs. Especially NPCs with low stat totals but something that in principle should make them valuable and unique anyway. After all, one only needs so many transport mules in a KT.

On the other hand, I can definitely see players crying foul if they happen to be staring down the battlefield and see an army equipped with unique skills that they couldn't even have if they tried. It was intimidating enough seeing Sun Ce come at us tonfas a-flailin in V2, or more recently Deng Ai in The Map That Still Keeps Me Up At Night. Now if I picture that same battle with special skills, and multiply it by the entire playerbase going through similar battles potentially, I have a feeling someone would have raged, somewhere in the game. In the end, it materially doesn't even affect balance that much to have a single really powerful unit (after all, they still only get 1 turn/round), but it does induce stress and that does tend to make people grumble.

As with all things, it's awesome for the person who benefits, not so much for others.

I belive (to Mat's concern about unique skill transparancy) that Lu Bu's skill allows him to ignore damage until he takes a wound. Things like Mi Heng's tongue had the bonuses listed and other things like the "Flee Like A Sima" we saw last version are noted in a very general sense as "escape bonus" but over time you get the general idea that its a HUGE escape bonus.

Short version: We get a general idea of what they do but are not given the specifics (usually) simply because we don't really need to know them.

I do however want to see War Elephants back.... Restrict them however you want but I so want to see them in the game again.... Admittedly though I'm a big fan of being able to customize your armies to fit a playstyle/flavor of the kingdom, I know its not a popular idea but I would be 10,000 kinds of excited to see rulers be able to make choices similar to how we are now looking at letting them decide the type of goverment but with their troops too....

Xeniphon wrote:I belive (to Mat's concern about unique skill transparancy) that Lu Bu's skill allows him to ignore damage until he takes a wound. Things like Mi Heng's tongue had the bonuses listed and other things like the "Flee Like A Sima" we saw last version are noted in a very general sense as "escape bonus" but over time you get the general idea that its a HUGE escape bonus.

Short version: We get a general idea of what they do but are not given the specifics (usually) simply because we don't really need to know them.

I do however want to see War Elephants back.... Restrict them however you want but I so want to see them in the game again.... Admittedly though I'm a big fan of being able to customize your armies to fit a playstyle/flavor of the kingdom, I know its not a popular idea but I would be 10,000 kinds of excited to see rulers be able to make choices similar to how we are now looking at letting them decide the type of goverment but with their troops too....

*kicks self for straying off topic*

Sorry about that....

Xeni, i dunno if this is the place for it, but can you elaborate on your idea? Sounds interesting.

Admittedly though I'm a big fan of being able to customize your armies to fit a playstyle/flavor of the kingdom

If infrastructure varied by region. Ie., in one territory you might make arbalests, while in another you might breed elephants.

I think it kind of does in some cases, like with Elephants. Those are pretty much very limited to where they can be..i guess "produced"? But i don't see Elephants in the V6 kingdom turn rules, but then again it is just a draft and i may have even overlooked their mention.

With Elephants though, they can actually survive outside the tropical southern Nanman areas. I did a little bit of research on them and it appears that if domesticated, they can survive pretty well if properly taken care of in many of the areas on the map, with the exception of the mountainous areas probably. You just couldnt leave them out in the cold of course, they would need to be cared for with shelter and enough food and water. Also, Elephants are probably more useful with logistical and transportation purposes rather than a sort of military unit, for as strong as they are and brawny, they are actually also pretty smart animals and could be trained just like dogs, dolphins, horses or Apes. The presence of elephants could probably assist in building large structures and moving heavy objects from place to place, even on the battlefield. They could be bred probably in many more areas too. But to do that, you would first need to transport them from areas like Nan Hai. Only then, maybe if you had the infrastructure, start producing them for military purposes but i would consider civil development purposes too, breed would probably be needed too i would think. Just a few thoughts i guess.

Xiahou Mao wrote:Lu Bu is a special case, someone who is set apart from every other duelist. For the non-duelist characters who are also set apart from their peers, we can usually accomplish that simply with high stats (see: Cao Cao/Zhuge Liang), but something special needs to be done to allow a Lu Bu to go three on one against Oath Brothers.

I know that this would require some amount of work and that in the end it's probably not worth it but - personally I think it would be awesome if really powerful characters (and I don't mean just physical prowess), would have their very own "Achilles' heel". As in, a soft spot, a weakness, most likely kept concealed. Whoever finds that secret (say, through espionage) gains a strong advantage over that powerful person, and is able to defeat him/her or convince her to switch sides, etc.

I'm thinking how in RTK, Lu Bu was unequal in combat and a direct attempt to persuade him to turn against Dong Zhuo would have been futile, but Wang Yun accomplished this using Lu Bu's infatuation for Diao Chan. Now, obviously this is a soft spot fit for a man like Lu Bu, someone known for his brawn, not for his brains. A person like, say, Zhuge Liang would have a different kind of weakness entirely.

Again - this implies work on the backstory of certain NPC's, and since they aren't really a main focus, it wouldn't be worth the effort. However, I do think it would be a feature that would add a great deal of depth, and it would be interest to see what a very skilled spy could unearth about enemy officers.

And it could also make the idea of unique skills more bearable for players - knowing that there is at least *something* they could do regarding a seemingly invincible opponent.

Just an idea.

"This is what the Gnostics have taught me. Do not question yourself about the value of the contribution. The passion itself, which gives us both our power and our pain, is the mark of eternity in our souls. No matter in what specific arena you seek your perfection; that you seek it is enough; let no one persuade you that you do too little or too much." ―Queen Rine's Meditation Upon Passion

Well, the 'weaknesses' a character has are there to target in roleplay. That's not something we really need to set in stone as rules, but certainly people can manipulate NPCs or make them react more favourably by pushing the right buttons, whatever those may be. It's happened in previous games and will most likely happen in this one, though people should remember that NPCs often have a bit of a unique spin on them, so that (continuing to use him as an example) Lu Bu in this game may not behave exactly like novel Lu Bu or historical Lu Bu. Of course, there's enough posts of him already that people can get a handle on how he's being played. Rather than adding a game mechanic for finding these 'weaknesses', players would just have to get a handle on them through interaction with the characters. Making roleplaying important!

I mean, I've got three GMNPCs currently. Allegedly, at least. They're all going to react differently to the same approach. Something that pleases Dong Zhuo might repulse Cao Cao, something that makes Xiahou Yuan laugh might make Dong Zhuo order an execution.